How Do IT Professionals Carry out a System Audit?

IT professionals are individuals who are able to tackle modern-day computing challenges and problems by creating, operating, managing, and maintaining information and computer systems. As it is already known, information technology plays a vital role in generating and enhancing the value of an organization; this directly affects the business’s bottom line and revenue.

One of the most important tasks performed by an IT professional is a system audit. A system audit is the thorough and careful review and evaluation of an enterprise’s information systems to check for loopholes, inefficiencies, inefficacies, and security vulnerabilities. Successful system audits improve the efficiency, efficacy, and productivity of a company by preventing further abuse of the enterprise’s resources.

This is how a system audit is carried out by an information technology professional. It involves evaluating the software, hardware, data, and the users, both internal and external.

· Initial Assessment

In the first step of the system audit, the different management practices and various functions are understood which occur at multiple levels of the information technology hierarchy. This step enables IT professionals to determine whether to proceed with the audit or not.

They conduct interviews with the staff, observe various installation methods, and study installation documentation. Furthermore, application and management controls are scrutinized and important weaknesses and loopholes are identified. It is also determined whether or not remedial measures contained in installation controls are able to minimize losses.

· The Vulnerability is Determined

In the next step, IT professionals identify the different types of vulnerabilities present in the system. This is done by reviewing each application on an individual basis; computer applications and systems that at stake are the ones mostly misused by cyber criminals. Application types and quality control protocols are properly reviewed.

· Identification of Security Threats

This is a vital step as all the different external and internal sources of threat are identified such as system analysts, programmers, regular users, data entry operators, data vendors, cyber security specialists, and software services.

Similarly, events, occasions, and points are determined in the IT infrastructure’s lifecycle when it was attacked and breached. For example, there might have been a transaction earlier during the breach which was altered, deleted or added.

Software applications are also capable threat sources especially when they carry out undesirable operations.

· Examining the Internal Controls

IT professionals take steps to check the internal controls of an IT system’s infrastructure and ensure that they work as intended. The efficacy of the controls is also determined and any missing controls are discovered and rectified.

· Final Testing

The internal control systems of the enterprise are thoroughly evaluated and tested, including its different components. This is done to make sure that the probability of asset losses in the future is as low as possible. Testing consists of determining faulty processing, identifying the quality of data, searching for wrong data, contrasting physical data, and correlating data with outside sources.

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